Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A handsome bride

With Nick early in the evening

Our bachelor party was drag karaoke. We descended upon my old college karaoke haunt Sunday night, 20 of us fully costumed, or scantily costumed as the case may be. Our friends were game for minidresses or fake facial hair, and I can't quite articulate how moved I was by the mobilization of so many people to go out looking ridiculous. We reached a critical mass of crossdressers at the tiny dive bar, such that regular plain-clothes karaoke patrons were apologizing for their attire as they began their song: "Congratulations to Evie and Nick...wish I looked more festive." The ultimate measure of the evening's success? The arrival of a man in a dress that I didn't even know. It is my understanding that after the bar closed, deep-fried pizza was obtained from an after-hours by-the-slice stand? So I'd have to imagine that shaved a few years off my life.

After nearly six years with my future husband, I came to terms with monogamy and its trappings a long time ago (N.B. most of these trappings are great). One night swanning around a club wearing a crown made of plastic dicks in exchange for a lifetime of shelving evolutionary instinct seems a strange barter. It's not that I disparage ladies-only merrymaking for merrymaking's sake, I just don't have much to get off of my chest at this point. There is little for me to say goodbye to - I never felt I needed to give up going out (or staying in) with friends as a condition of our couplehood. And I plan to raise hell well into old age.